Broken Promises
by MarioFireRed
Summary: "I'm sorry guys. I just...couldn't keep the promise I swore to you all. I vowed to become a guardian to you all, but I failed miserably." Peace is restored in Elrios and everyone is celebrating...except the Elgang. Read on Chung's slow descent to despair watching his friends suffer and rot away in a miserable hospital room.


**Me: Aaaaand one last One-Shot while waiting for the Olympics!**

**Mario: Are you seriously working on it?**

**Me: *bashes Mario in with a hammer* YES! DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO WRITE ABOUT THOSE EVENTS INTO ONE CHAPTER!? (got 2/7 events done for the first chapter btw)**

**Mario: *rubs head* OwO. YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO DO THAT!**

**Crystal: *wraps Mario in bandages* Here you go Mario.**

**Mario: Oh thanks**

**Me: Now for my next story, a tragedy!**

* * *

_Chapter 1: Eternity_

"**The tragedy of life is not that man loses, but that he almost wins." **

**-Heywood C. Broun**

It's been about a week since the demons retreated and peace is finally restored in Elrios. Ruben's population is recovering thanks to the return of their missing El, Elder finally built a grave for their betrayed leader Wally, the Lizardmen tribe and the residents of Bethma lived in harmony with one another, The Ponggos in Altera Village no longer live in fear of corrupted Nasods, and the cities of Velder and Hamel are rebuilding from the demon invasion. It seems like everyone can finally rest in peace and live happy lives right?

Right?

Dead wrong. At least for me anyway.

I stared off into space inside the newly built Hamel Hospital, where all my friends gave a dear sacrifice to ensure the stability of our continent. Me? I didn't give up anything, it was all on them. It's another reason why I'm here on the verge of crying, visiting all my friends in the patient rooms conscious of the fact that they're handicapped for the rest of their young lives and me perfectly fine is just sickening.

I stopped by our leader first, the Rune Slayer Elsword. He was the kind of guy anyone can become friends with, a loud mouth chatterbox with a cheerful personality. Elsword would always rally up our team with inspiring speeches whenever one of us felt like we couldn't pull our own weight to the task at hand. It seemed as though his sword and fire-specialty runes told us to slice down a path for tomorrow using our own hands, and to do so with burning determination. Now, after taking Chloe's Nature Force straight to the jaw, he lays there to waste in that hospital bed, white bandages completely covering the lower half of his face. Not only can Elsword never eat anything anymore thanks to having all of his teeth shattered, but the power of darkness left his voice box completely broken leaving him mute as well. The once talkative and big eater red-headed teenager now feels as if Time fast forwarded 60 years into the future, spending the rest of his young days trapped inside that room forced to watch daytime television 24/7. I entered the room and immediately those dull ice cold eyes of his brightened at my arrival. I conversed with him for a bit, only asking yes or no questions, then left the room. I really wish this is all just a dream and we can all have our fun again.

But it isn't a dream, this is the harsh reality we live in. Why can't there be a reset button in life so my friends don't just sit here all day and wait to die? Life really isn't fair. I wiped the tears running down my face that I hid from Elsword and moved on to the next patient.

This time I popped inside Aisha's room, our once lovely Elemental Master magician. She used to butt heads with Elsword all the time on any topic whether it was training, tastes in food, or who could win in a one on one duel. Aisha always was the first one to notice any incoming dangers thanks to her natural instincts of the magical elements and saved our behinds countless times. Being the smart one of the group, all of us instinctively flock to the magician whenever we needed help with something due to her vast knowledge. That all changed when, like Elsword, she protected me from a deadly attack. Aisha summoned her Statue of Glory in order to shield me from the Shadow Stinger while everyone else attacked from behind. Unfortunately the statue couldn't materialize in time, as the shadow monster twice our size shot out crystallized stingers from its chest reaching Aisha. If not for me instantly shattering the crystal with one of my Silver Shooters, Aisha wouldn't have gotten away with just a severely malfunctioning nose. The sight was horrible to see as the peppy magician fell to the ground with blood spewing everywhere, thankfully she didn't die and lays there now inside that hospital bed. Fortunately Aisha can still talk to me and we chatted for a few minutes, making sure she ate her food and everything. I left the room after knowing she still gets through life okay despite no longer being able to smell through her new broken nose all wrapped in bandages.

How did it feel like, for a magician so in touch with the magical elements in her life no longer being able to make them out properly anymore? How Aisha, a teenager who loves sweet food, can never again savor the delicious aroma of her favorite desserts? Cake, ice cream, chocolate. Of all the dungeons we spent clearing through, that last one in the Halls of Water is without a doubt the worst one of all.

I stopped myself from shaking with difficulty and proceeded to our loving Elven mother, the Grand Archer Rena. Rena always babysat us as if we were kids, and we were. The elf always gave us motherly advice and banded the team together with the power of friendship. Watching from afar, her hawk-like senses protects the rest of us from harms way. How did someone so friendly and caring suffer through the worst imaginable fate for her? Rena harmonizes with Nature as if they were sisters, constantly becoming the Green Thumb of our little family and joins in sync with it in all of her daily life. Now in that hospital bed, she can never hear Nature or me or anybody. That demon with the humongous hammer, Bobosse, is responsible for her loss of hearing thanks to all that smacking of his. All the sound waves radiating from each destructive blow flowed into Rena's eardrums the most, as she has the most acute hearing. We may have defeated him shortly afterwords, but the aftereffects of the elf's auditory system is forever damaged. To communicate with the now deaf elf, I trained myself to learn Sign Language and conversed with her that way once I entered the room. Fortunately she can understand me and understood the same questions I asked the previous two. Once again I bid her farewell and once again I must travel deeper in the hospital and make sure my friends are doing alright.

An elf so in tune with nature, suddenly loses her hearing. Why God? Why did you take away all of the gifts my friends hold dear to their hearts the most? It's just not fair. Most of all, why make me perfectly healthy and yet still suffer along with my comrades?

My vision almost filled with a dizzy water flow of tears as I gripped the wall beside the next friend's room to stop from falling. I don't know if I can take much more of this without breaking down. I regulated my breathing and peered inside Raven's room, our fierce Blade Master. Ever since Elsword saved him back in Altera, Raven joined us to atone for his past sins and finally forget about his past. Once again like all the others, Raven's wings flew high up towards the sky then is brutally shot right back down like the urban story of Icarus. After the others retreated from the dungeon, Raven, Eve, and I faced the final boss Ran. When I wasn't there to help, Raven protected Eve from one of Ran's deadly claw slashes. Without my huge cannon to cover the brunt of the impact, the claw slashed right at the Blade Master's eyes, blinding him. With his eyesight permanently scarred by the hands of darkness, Raven was and still is yelling in his dark and cold little world. The sound of his yelling, like a child crying out for his parents, and the constant sobbing told me the story he's living in.

That one fateful day that Raven desires to forget so much. His whole kingdom and best friend betraying him, framing him and sentencing him to jail, and all of his friends (who still sided with him) and fiance helping him bust out. Then, the true terror begins. One by one, Raven witnessed with his own eyes the screams of agony and silence of death each and every one of his friends slowly and painfully undergone through.

The once proud leader of the Crow Mercenaries trapped within a living nightmare 24/7, crying himself at the unforgiving and unforgettable memory. Several nurses rushed in with tranquilizer needles and promptly put him to sleep. Based on this surprisingly calm and speedy process, Raven must've taken them multiple times throughout the day.

I couldn't even hold myself together to enter his room. I made a promise to protect everyone and broke it. I truly wish it all ended here, but there's one more visit I have to muster up my strength for.

My lonely footsteps made their way to the end of the dimly lit hallway to pay a visit to my last friend, all alone and nearly forgotten to the world. The emotionless Queen of Nasods, my best friend who sacrificed the most out of us all, the Code Battle Seraph Eve. Her drones Moby and Remy lay on the medical table next to her damaged beyond repair as if God took one step further and snatched away her most precious servants. Instead of fulfilling her lifelong dream of reviving the Nasod race, Eve waits in that lonely bed to eventually rust and shut down. She gave up her emotions to unlock the Battle Seraph code in her system, becoming so powerful in order to protect us. Now look at her. Thanks to that final clash between Ran's Black Flame Burst against Eve's Giga Stream and my Shooting Star, the last bit of flame after the demon's death struck the Nasod from her neck downwards. Now she sits there, paralyzed from the neck down, only able to move her head. Thanks to her room being so isolated from all the others, hardly anyone visits her.

I can't blame her for suddenly wishing she kept her emotions. She can't feel angry at herself for failing her goal, she can't feel happy that Elrios is restored in peace, and most of all she can't feel sadness for wallowing the rest of her functional expectancy rusting away inside this dump of a hospital room. I can't bring myself to enter, Eve was the one I swore to protect the most. But now, she paid the greatest toll out of all of them and I couldn't do a single thing to prevent it.

Instead I collapsed against the wall finally breaking down, bringing my knees closer to my chest. All those cheerful days we spent laughing and bonding with one another, gone. Reality finally sunk in for me harshly, presenting me with the greatest thing I could obtain in life suddenly snatched away with brutal scars. The family that once was is all over now.

_It's going to be okay. I can get through this and move on. _I silently whispered to myself repeatedly in between sobbing. But the truth is that it isn't okay, and that I can't move on from this. A promise is a promise and I had it shattered in the most unimaginably cruel way possible. I spent what felt like an eternity just sitting there like all of my comrades with only one thought running across my mind.

_I'm sorry my friends, I really am._

* * *

**Crystal: What is with the bolded quote fire?**

**Me: Thought I start off with a new kind of intro. Since this is a one shot, the readers shouldn't mind that much.**

**Elgirls: *blows noses on tissues* SO SAD!**

**Chung: Why am I suffering D':**

**Me: Be thankful I made you the main character in an active work.**


End file.
